Keep watching it. If it goes up along the road to its own territory to Beth-shemesh, it's the LORD who has done this great evil to us. But if it does not, then we will know that he wasn't pressuring us. It happened to us as a natural event."

The cows took a straight path along the road to Beth-shemesh. They stayed on the highway, lowing as they went, and did not turn to the right or the left. The Philistine lords followed them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.

Now the people of Beth-shemesh were gathering their wheat harvest in the valley. They looked up, saw the Ark, and rejoiced to see it.

The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh, and stopped there. In that place there was a large stone. They broke up the wood from the cart, and offered up the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD.

The descendants of Levi took down the Ark of the LORD, along with the box that was with it, containing the objects of gold, and they put them on the large stone. The men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the LORD that day.

The gold mice represented the number of all the Philistine towns belonging to the five lords, both fortified towns and unwalled villages. The large stone, beside which they put the Ark of the LORD, is a witness to this day in the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh.

God struck down the men of Beth-shemesh because they had looked into the Ark of the LORD. He struck down 50,070 men among the people, and the people mourned because the LORD struck down the people with a great slaughter.

The men of Beth-shemesh asked themselves, "Who can stand in the presence of the LORD, this holy God? And to whom will the Ark go from here?"

The men of Israel went out from Mizpah, pursued the Philistines, and struck them down as far as a point below Beth-car.

The Philistines assembled to fight against Israel with 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and people as numerous as the sand on the seashore. And they advanced and camped in Michmash, east of Beth-aven.

one company turned in the direction of Beth-horon, while the one company turned toward the border that overlooks the valley of Zeboiim toward the desert.

On that day the LORD delivered Israel, and the battle moved past Beth-aven.

They put Saul's weapons in the temple of Asherah and fastened his corpse to the wall of Beth-shan.

every valiant soldier got up, traveled all night, and removed Saul's body and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. Then they went to Jabesh and cremated the bodies there.